Bird pooping on you
When a bird poops on you, someone nearby will often call it good fortune. That old consolation deserves a closer look: it turns an embarrassing second into a joke you can share.
What it may mean
Few things are as random as a bird dropping landing on your shoulder. You did nothing to cause it, nobody aimed, and it happens in front of witnesses. Maybe that is why people came to call it good fortune: a moment that cannot be undone gets a better story attached. The consolation is a small piece of social wisdom. It lets the person standing next to you laugh with you instead of at you, and it lets you move on with your dignity largely intact. Not every tradition was this kind (in Madagascar, a kite's droppings were a grim omen), and you need not believe any of it. The useful part is how you carry yourself in the next minute, when the only thing left to choose is your reaction.
Depending on how you saw it
A gull at the beach or on a boardwalk
Gulls gather wherever people eat outdoors, and a flock overhead is a busy one. Sitting under the place where they circle raises the odds a great deal. Some risks come with the spot you chose, not with fate. Which situation keeps splashing you simply because you keep sitting in the same place?
On your head on the way somewhere important
It always seems to happen before an interview or a date. A tissue, a sink and five minutes fix most of it, and the story often turns out to be a good icebreaker. Which small mishap could you tell on yourself today, so that it becomes a shared laugh rather than a secret?
On your car right after a wash
Birds roost in trees and on wires above parking spots, and every splash stands out on a newly washed car. Wiping droppings off soon protects the paint. Which effort of yours got spoiled right away, and could you simply wipe it and carry on?
Why it happens in nature
Birds have no bladder. They pass urine and feces together through one opening, and the white part is chiefly uric acid, a paste that saves water. Many birds empty often, especially just before taking off, so a crowd of pigeons or gulls overhead will drop something sooner or later. Washing skin or clothes with soap and water takes care of it.
What folk beliefs say
Madagascar
In Madagascar, the droppings of a kite falling on someone were taken as an omen of that person's death.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 655. View the page
To reflect on
What do you do in the first minute after something embarrassing happens to you in public?